same pc problem, only worse

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OK. A lot of misinformation and urban myth on this thread.

Windows Product Activation

The string of five groups of five hexadecimal characters is what is on to sticker and is the "Windows Product Key" for XP Home.

If you cannot read the sticker, or it has gone to sticker heaven, you can use keyfinder to find out what it was (plus some of the other codes for software, such as MS Office).

There is no limit on the number of activations. Rathetr, there is a complicated "points" sum done against the hardware on the machine. It allows you to make some changes, but then gets "shirty" about it, and you have to telephone them and convince them that it really is still your computer that you bought Windows with/for.

Unfortunately, the story doesn't quite end there, as there are "royalty" OEM vendors, who include HP, who have allocated blocks of "Product Keys", and require a different approach. For these vendors, if your hard drive is truly wrecked, and you find that the normal Widows XP Home CD does not work, you will need to request them to send you the customised Windows CDs they use. On the one occasion when I had to do this for a customer, HP were fairly prompt about it, and sent them for free.

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PS. pakled... the only time I ever used a Windows "restore point", it wrecked my XP. In any case, -gemma-1990- is just trying to get this desktop working. There's no data to back up, and a clean install is what she's after.

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PPS. Download Ubuntu, 20 minutes... burn CD, another few minutes... install Ubuntu, another 20 minutes, and you're online and posting on WP.

Borrow a CD from somebody else. Download all the drivers from the HP Website. If HP is stupid and don't give the drivers like with computers over 3 years old. Well you can always open Device Manager and get the names to your hardware components like.

1. Video Driver
2. Sound Controller, Usally its the one with a different name from all the other components.
3. Modem
4. Network-Card
5. SATA Controller if you have a SATA Hard Drive

Google drivers to all the hardware for those components you found in Device Manager. Good Luck!! !!

You can tell me the model number and what windows you are running off of and I can give you even more help.

Nothing to do with drivers. See above: they are a "royalty" OEM vendor.

Uh, that's pretty much what I've said, but you've said it again ? ...

The only reason you would want an S-ATA controller would primarily be for RAID/JBOD. If you get stuck, there are alternatives to getting drivers for the board. ie - direct from the manufacturer instead of "Google" search. But, hey, if that works for you ...

Isnt there some 120-day period concerning how long after you activate on one machine that the activation center cares about or something? I've activated using my activation code on multiple computers without a problem, but over a period of many years...


Agreed. If you're not after gaming, Ubuntu really is the way to go. If all you want to do is surf the web, use tools like office (ubuntu comes with openoffice packaged), etc., then ubuntu is probably the best OS for you... It's preferable to the $300 for Vista or the $1,900 to buy a mac with all its hardware, and it's actually easier to use for said functions of internet communication and office applications than mac. Nowadays, I'm trying to convert most of my machines to ubuntu (except my gaming machine and my laptop, the latter of which has a factory settings restore option and therefore a free copy of xp)...